The Potion Experiment by Elle McFadzean

Title: The Potion Experiment

Author: Elle McFadzean

Publisher: Elle McFadzean

Publication Date: 18 February 2025

Price: $21.99

Page numbers: 276

Genre: MG Fantasy

Synopsis/Blurb:

When thirteen-year-old scientist Ange is whisked from her home to the middle of a forest, she thinks she’s cracked teleportation. Until she hears Eva’s voice in her head, talking about magic and spells and a potion-gone-wrong. 

Turns out Ange is stuck in Eva’s body – in a world full of magic, where no one has heard of physics or chemical equations – while Eva is in Ange’s world and a little too keen to start casting spells for the fun of it.

Now Ange needs to figure out how to swap back before they’re found out. But if their constant bickering doesn’t get in the way, Eva’s habit of pranking and Ange’s inability to catch toads just might.

~*~

Ange is surprised when she appears in a forest, far from her home – it’s a scientific conundrum and wonder – she’s cracked teleportation! But then she starts hearing Eva’s voice in her head muttering about magic and spells – what on earth has happened? Eva tells her a spell to make her move places has gone wrong, and so she has switched minds with Ange. Which means…Ange is stuck in Eva’s body in a world of magic, and Eva is in Ange’s world, determined to cast spells and play pranks.

It’s all because of a potion Eva was inventing that went awry, and now, the two girls must work together in their alternate universes, populated by the same people but with a few differences, to recreate the potion and switch back. Of course, it wouldn’t be a grand fantasy without complications and a quest that seems impossible. The story goes between Ange and Eva in each world as they work together to make the potion to switch back. Understanding how each other works, and how each other’s worlds work will be key in tackling what they need to do. Ange is resistant to the whole thing at first, not only trying to apply science and logic to it all, but adamant that Eva has to do it all…until she realises she has to make the potion.

Much of the story is focused on Ange in Eva’s version of our world, as she mind-talks to Eva about the potion and teaches Eva about our world. We occasionally dip back into Eva navigating a modern Australia, and each time things go back and forth, they are there in each other’s mind, talking to each other and helping each other. Everything in this story is about teamwork and working together, and learning new things and about who you can trust – who your friends are and the changing dynamics of certain relationships. Each aspect is cleverly replicated in each world, in each version of Evangeline – Eva and Ange, Ange and Eva as it plays with the idea of alternate universes where the possibilities of different versions of the same people exist.

As a reader, fantasy books are amongst my favourites to read, and whilst there are tropes and themes that appear in them frequently, just as they do in any genre, there can be something unique done with these tropes. For this one, it was the distinctly Australian setting, and the sense that the fantasy world mirrored this that felt fresh to me. Magic, spells, and potions may only be able to be shown in a few different ways, and yet, there is something about the way it is used in this book that stands out – the way potions are mixed, for example. And the magic in this book also mirrors a lot of the science that Ange loves, so it gets a nice balance between the two and shows that there really is magic in nearly everything – even if it goes by a different name somewhere else.

This was a fantastic book, and I do love a good fantasy stand-alone that captures the world, the stories and the characters so eloquently that everything within the book is just what it needs. It’s not lacking anything, and I think all the questions a reader could potentially have are answered well in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and hope other readers do as well.